UFC's Jacob Volkmann won't shut up until he gets a meeting with the President

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has a chain. Chuck Liddell has a mohawk. Chael Sonnen has his mouth.

They are the marks of a fighter’s personality and the things that identify them to the rest of the world. They are as much a part of a fighter’s brand as the style brought to the cage. Just about every high-profile competitor has a defining feature.

Jacob Volkmann would like to make Obamacare his.

“Even though people don’t want me to do it, I don’t care,” he told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).

The UFC lightweight already has planned his next post-fight speech, rehearsed it, then come up with variations depending on the questions of commentator Joe Rogan. Every one of them takes the president to task.

Four months after it got him in hot water, Volkmann (12-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) hasn’t forgotten about his beef with the president’s healthcare policy. Even if more controversy follows next time, he plans to continue voicing his opinion.

He’s just missing one thing: a fight. It’s been four months without a peep from the UFC. He boxes, he practices jiu jitsu, and recently, he entered a Greco-Roman wrestling competition in the senior division. In all, he’s working out two times a day in addition to his day job as a chiropractor and a side job as a high-school wrestling coach. He’s married with three kids. He misses fighting, but there’s a lot of life to be had without it.

Still, it’s hard for him to shake the feeling that he’s been forgotten. Have his political beliefs brought the cold shoulder from his fight boss? Not according to his manager. He’s been told a glut of lightweights is backing up things.

So he’ll try to rustle up some answers this week at the UFC’s annual fighter summit, a four-day gathering of all who compete inside the octagon. Maybe he can grease the wheels.

“Everyone else is going through the same crap, aren’t they?” he asked.

A few of the 51 fighters on the UFC’s current lightweight roster surely can relate. Lulls are more commonplace, especially when a previous performance is not one for the water-cooler circuit. That pretty much sums up his fight with veteran Antonio McKee at UFC 125.

What happened next separated him from the pack. In a post-fight interview with MMAFighting.com (that was later spoofed by Jay Leno), he said he wanted to knock some sense into President Barack Obama about healthcare. The Secret Service showed up the next week during wrestling practice at Volkmann’s high school. They were looking for a security threat. Instead, they found a healthcare worker buried in paperwork and angered at insurance companies who made him fill out treatment plans before he saw patients.

Volkmann’s bosses at White Bear Lake High School weren’t amused by the incident. They suspended him from coaching for two weeks and issued a set of rules upon his return. Among them: no wearing of school clothes during interviews, no interviews on school property, no bashing the school board, and no disrespectful language.

He makes $1,800 a year at the job.

“They’re pretty ridiculous rules,” he chuckles.

His jab at Obama isn’t just for show, either. He’s been writing letters to the President since the interview. He has yet to get a response, or at least one that isn’t written by an intern or a machine. He seems genuinely surprised about that.

“It’s like he doesn’t even really care about what happens,” Volkmann said. “He has these policies, and he doesn’t have a clue what they’re about. He’s doing a horrible job.”

The bulk of Volkmann’s criticism is rooted in the red tape he must cut at his job. He estimates he made $17,000 in 2010 as a chiropractor, but said all of his profits were eroded by expenses, and his time was taken by needless red tape. Fighting was far charitable; he earned in the neighborhood of $60,000. But between managers, trainers and taxes, that amount was considerably less.

This year, business is good at his medical practice, and that may be attributed in part to his newfound notoriety. He said he’s been bombarded with emails criticizing his choice to bring politics into fighting, but he’s also gotten a lot more air time than the usual preliminary-card fighter.

In that, he might be getting hip to what iconic fighters already know: defining features can be leveraged into future profits.

But he also is genuinely angered at a system he’s seen firsthand, and he’s going to use his current platform to give voice to his beliefs. If he wins a fight and the broadcast truck is feeling charitable, he’ll get that chance.

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